Connections/Eyes

I'm Deniz Beyazit, I'm one of the curators in the Islamic art department, and my topic is "Eyes."

I'm originally from Turkey, but I grew up in Switzerland, in Northern Europe. Since I can remember, people were always struck by my eyes, because they thought they were big and expressive, and probably because they're not used to Near Eastern eyes.

The eye has an importance in my culture. The evil eye. It's the protection of the bad look, of jealousy, of something bad which would happen. Close to the evil eye in ancient culture is the Eye of Horus.

I was always impressed by all the ancient Greek sculptures, their look, to me they just stare into emptiness. Now I know that they

actually should have eyes. And in some cases you can see the traces of the eyes, which have been painted.

In other cases they are just holes and there the eyes were inlaid in a different material, but this shows me that

without eyes, the sculpture has lost its expressivity. I mean

I think the eye contact is very important. If you talk to someone and he's just

ignoring you, he doesn't look into your eyes, you will get insecure.

Eyes can tell a lot about a person. Someone who is sad, you can see the tears in the eyes. Or a look of rage

where Medea is represented. Her spouse, Jason, betrayed her, cheated on her. In her emotion, she killed their children. In her eyes, in her look, she has so much tension, so much fear. She is really lost. She doesn't know what happened, she regrets, and all that is expressed in her eyes.

Eyes also express beauty. In a photograph of a woman she highlights her eye, so the one who looks at the photograph has to look there, and she herself has to look through that hole, so there is communication. And that's why I like, also

the miniature. You actually don't know to which person that belongs, but it's obvious it's a female eye, because it's a very sensual look. You can see the curly hair. To me this shows beauty, but it also shows a secret hiding behind that look, which the beloved of someone can carry.

The veil is something which is very common in my culture, and so I think it's something very natural.

When something is veiled, the part which is visible gets much more attention: the face and the eyes. It can be something very beautiful

something very feminine, very elegant, very sensual. They hide, but they also show something, actually.

There is another level where eyes become spiritual. Jesus Christ, his eyes are not really looking at us, they have something calm, something eternal, and to me the same is true when you look at

this head of a Sassanian king, where again he's not looking at us. He looks like if someone had hypnotized him. Without that look, I think the whole sculpture would lose strength and its real eternal power.

Eyes express so much of a personality, they can talk without words. It can be the shining of an eye.

In that sense, it's the first communication I have with someone. I look into the eyes. If I get a good energy

from a look of someone, I trust in that.